Return of Sky Ghost

by Maloney, Mack;

  Screw his men—he wanted to live. Just before the airplane’s guns opened up again, Colonel Ganganez turned around and began crashing through the jungle.

  With the cries of his men ringing in his ears, he simply ran away.

  Back in New Lima, a flight of SuperZeroes from the 1029th Battle Squadron was taking off.

  They’d been dispatched by General Wakisaki to aid in the Night Brigade’s destruction of the secret enemy base on Xwo Mountain. The problem was, the pilots weren’t sure where Xwo Mountain was exactly. They were aware of the Night Brigade’s general vicinity, about 250 miles north of New Lima, and they were fairly certain of which mountain range Ganganez and his men were now scaling. It would just be a matter of the Brigade marking their position with smoke for the pilots to determine the correct combat area. After that, the plan called for a combined land-air attack on the secret mountaintop base. One, two, three, and out, a very easy operation. So easy, the pilots, Japanese officers all, expected to be back at their home field by noon.

  The SuperZeroes were fierce airplanes. Jet-powered yet retaining many of the innovative and lightweight characteristics of the old Mitsubishi Zero, these aircraft carried six machine guns, plus twin cannons—and up to five tons of bombs. The SuperZero pilots were as famous as their airplanes. In the Imperial Japanese scheme of things, they were regarded as highly skilled, combat-hardened, and absolutely without mercy for their opponents. They were known to unforgivingly strafe the wreckage of planes they’d downed, always making sure the pilots were dead. They routinely bombed villages that were miles from any military activity, seemingly for the sport of it. Their favorite pastime was strafing hospitals and orphanages. It was said that no flight of the SuperZeroes went up without detailed maps of all the enemy hospitals and orphanages that would be within their day’s area of operations.

  There were eight planes on this mission. They were flying in two flights of four. They foresaw bombing the secret air base first, then coming back and strafing whatever helpless enemy troops they could find on the ground. The only opposition they could think of possibly encountering was small arms fire, or at most, a cannon or two. Neither fazed the SuperZero pilots. Their planes were heavily armored on the bellies, wings, and tails. While a well-placed cannon shell might put a nasty dent in the body, machine gun bullets usually just bounced off.

  The flight up from New Lima took but twenty minutes, the SuperZeroes bumping up their double-reaction fuel-burners and streaking to the combat area at nearly 600 knots. Soon after arriving they spotted a column of smoke rising up from a mountain located deep inside the range. This particular mountain was about 8,000 feet high; the smoke was coming from a spot about halfway up. This was obviously the marker being sent up from brigade ground troops.

  Or so they thought.

  The airplanes lowered their speed and went down to 5,000 feet. If they assumed this was the target mountain, then they assumed the secret air base was at its summit. The flight leaders told their men to fuse their ordnance and begin to line up for initial bombing runs.

  But the pilots saw something that was fairly odd. There was another smoke plume rising up from the side of the mountain. And another. And another. This signaling method was a little extreme by the Night Brigade. A simple smoke flare would have done the job. The pilots knew something was wrong, so they stopped their bomb fusings and prepared their machine guns and cannons instead.

  As they drew closer to the mountain, they found their intuition proved correct. There was a battle raging on a flattened-out piece of terrain 4,000 feet up the side of the mountain. It appeared the Night Brigade had run into some trouble. No problem. The ’Zero pilots simply test-fired their weapons and reconfigured their formation from prebombing to ground support.

  But as the planes got closer, they beheld an even more confusing situation. It appeared as if one section of the mountain had been literally blown away. A huge smoking crater was the source of the large plume of smoke spotted by the pilots. Many parts of the jungle were on fire as well, causing the other half dozen smoke trails. People could be seen on the ground—but were they Brigade troops or enemy soldiers, or both? It was impossible to tell from the ’Zero pilots’ point of view exactly who they’d be shooting at.

  But this was not a big deal for the fliers. They wouldn’t really have to change their plans all that much. The SuperZeroes would just go in shooting.

  They would leave it to the Night Brigade soldiers to sort out the bodies afterward.

  Colonel Ganganez was hiding.

  He was laying low in a tuft of snake grass, so called because of its long, slimy appearance. Before him was the horribly scorched plain of Axaz. It looked like a scene from hell. Fire. Smoke. Bodies. Pieces of bodies. The occasional cry on the wind.

  The gunship had circled for just three minutes and had left a hole in the ground bigger than a soccer field. The fusillade had perforated anything within that area, and Ganganez’s men couldn’t have made a more convenient target for the aerial slaughter. As their commander, he had made a blunder of enormous proportions in leading them up the mountain in the first place.

  But life was strange, and the cosmos stranger. Though it seemed impossible to him now, somehow, some way, some of Ganganez’s men had actually lived through the three minutes of horror.

  He could see some of them now through the snake grass. A few were trying to crawl into the bush, some were attempting to help others. Many were horribly burned. Many were missing arms and legs. One man was actually dragging his shorn-off leg behind him. Still others were lying still, occasionally twitching among the dying fires and thickening smoke. These people wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  Beyond all this, Ganganez spotted a larger clutch of men gathered on the periphery of the huge, smoldering crater. These soldiers, maybe fifty in all, seemed less injured than the rest. They even appeared to be regrouping a bit, finding weapons and checking their mechanisms.

  Ganganez could hear them. First one voice. Then two, then many. They were calling for someone. He listened harder, his heart pounding. They were calling out a name. His name.

  “Colonel? Colonel Ganganez! We are here….”

  The soldiers had spotted him, were waving to him, even laughing at the fact that they were still alive, that they had somehow managed to avoid getting killed in the gunship’s attack.

  Ganganez’s spirits soared. He still had an army!

  But then, as he began waving back, he saw from the trees behind his men gangs of painted natives with huge machetes emerging. They began overwhelming this small pack of laughing, waving soldiers, stabbing them, or chopping at them as calmly as a man chopped a tree. Ganganez’s men were just standing there! They were not fighting back. They were not running away. Some even calmly sat down and waited for the approaching natives, almost as if they’d been expecting them to come and slice their throats.

  Not one scream, not one cry came up, as the soldiers simply submitted to being killed. Ganganez’s head was about to explode. The scene was so grotesquely sheeplike, Ganganez vomited all over himself. What madness of war would make men act like this? If there was ever any time they needed his leadership, it was now.

  But Ganganez stayed frozen. He was not moving, not one iota. He couldn’t. He was petrified with fear so thick, he could taste it. For the first time in his military career, his ruthlessness was no help to him whatsoever. Even worse, he realized it was just a matter of time before these natives found him too.

  He had to get away, had to get further into the jungle. But he was just too sacred to move. His legs wouldn’t work; neither would his arms. He felt as if his body was made of stone. All was lost then, he thought, and he would probably die here, of fright if not a slashed throat, on this haunted mountain, all alone.

  But wait … there was another noise on the wind now. Not the sound of the still-burning forest nearby or the screams coming from the slaughter of his men.

  No, this was a different sound.

  Ganganez
looked up and was pleasantly stunned. It was a very hopeful sight: eight SuperZeroes of the Japanese Occupation Air Force were coming right toward him. Ganganez’s heart soared. What providence this was!

  His mind began buzzing madly. The SuperZeroes could easily mow down the enemy troops now engaging what was left of his column. After that, the planes could bomb the secret enemy air base on top of this damned mountain as well. This meant that the day still might still be saved for Ganganez. He took a deep breath and inhaled a mouthful of smoke. He’d just gone from hell to heaven in a split second. Now, not only did he believe that he could still make it out alive, he was actually thinking he could claim credit for what was about to happen on top of the mountain!

  But he still had to stay alive and he was at the moment too close to where the ’Zeroes would be coming in. Ganganez finally managed to get his arms working and crawled to an outgrowth of rock nearby. It would provide perfect cover for him during the impending air strike. He huddled behind it, eyeing the eight SuperZeroes as they peeled off into their attack profiles. Across the field the one-sided battle continued going badly for his men. They were still proving little match for the strange enemy, falling calmly to the razor-sharp machetes of the bizarre natives.

  Ganganez was certain the upcoming air strike would take care of the enemy, even if he knew many of his own men would be killed in the process. He was sure there were still plenty of his troops hiding in the woods and it would be with them that he would ascend the rest of the mountain and emerge triumphant at its peak.

  So he took one last look at the eight incoming jet fighters and then cowered behind the outcrop of rock, hiding his eyes again and waiting for the ground to shake.

  But just then, he thought he heard yet another, higher-pitched screech. Then he felt not a ground tremor but a disruption in the air around him. He opened his eyes and saw two SuperZeroes crashing into the fires already burning on the plain.

  He felt another concussion and saw a third ’Zero plow in. Behind it was a fourth. Then a fifth. The jet fighters were coming down in pieces—many pieces, as if they’d been shredded by something from above. But how? The flying monster gunship was certainly nowhere to be seen—its screaming engines would wake the dead at twenty miles.

  Ganganez dared to look up and saw the seventh SuperZero disintegrating before his eyes as a very unusual-looking airplane attacked it. The plane was very small, looking like it had been cut in half just behind the cockpit, where oddly enough its propulsion unit was. But this plane was acting very strangely as well; Ganganez could tell just in the first few seconds. It seemed to be able to flit back and forth across the sky, more like a hummingbird than a normal aircraft. Herkyjerky, turning, twisting, at times it seemed to come to a complete halt as it sprayed gunfire into the hapless number seven ’Zero.

  The ’Zero came down not 200 yards away from him just seconds later. Even through blocked ears and closed eyes Ganganez could tell what was going on above him. The last ’Zero was being executed by the strange airplane. Fire on metal, explosions above his head. Maybe even a long human scream. Inevitably the crash came. Number eight augured-in nearly on top of the wreckage of number seven.

  The flight of SuperZeroes had been shot down by one little airplane in less than forty-five seconds. Their bullets never reached the spot where the last of his men were being slaughtered.

  Now came a dreadful silence.

  No more airplane engines, no more wind. No more crackling of nearby flames. Just the faint screams of his men as they continued to get their throats slashed.

  Something inside Ganganez’s mind snapped. It was an actual snap—he heard the noise as plain as the scream of a jet engine or a cannon round going off.

  Snap! Just like that. And after that, he knew he would never be the same.

  That’s when he jumped up and started running. Running like death itself was on his tail. Running away from the fire and the smoke and the pleading cries of his men.

  Running, up the path, toward the top of the mountain.

  Ten

  IT TOOK GANGANEZ LESS than thirty minutes to scramble up to the top of Xwo Mountain.

  He made the trip quickly, fueled by the pure, unadulterated adrenaline of a madman. Breathing wildly, drool running from his mouth and nose, by the time he reached the summit, he could no longer feel his feet or his hands. Still, he became oddly calm. At least he was far away from the madness of the killing field at Axaz.

  But what he would find at the top of Xwo would seem more insane, more unreal than what he’d seen below.

  At first, he saw nothing. He reached the end of the steep path and found himself looking out over the vast Peruvian forests, stretching all the way to the sea. Ganganez was not interested in the scenery, as awesome as it was. He was actually quite startled. The flattened-out peak was deserted, barren, empty. There was nothing up here except windswept rocks and a few patches of snow.

  How could this be?

  Had he been suckered in and led to the wrong mountain to begin with?

  It seemed that way. But that was not the case. There was something up here. Ganganez thought he could hear it: engines, generators, radio static, humans moving about. He thought he could smell it. Fumes. Gas. Exhaust. Thick as the night.

  No—there was a secret base up here all right.

  He just couldn’t see it.

  Ganganez let out a long, chilling scream. He’d gone insane for sure, his worst fear since childhood. The next thing he knew, there was blood running from his ears, and a sound like the ocean was pouring over his head. He looked down at his feet and felt a great trembling. It was not him; he was too frozen to move a muscle. It was the ground that was shaking beneath him. Everything got black. The sun was blotted out. He could no longer see his shadow.

  That’s when he was able to turn and see the monstrous gunship coming right at him.

  He wet his pants. He couldn’t even breathe. Yet somehow he realized he was not totally insane. Not yet anyway. Because at least he could see this thing. He could hear it. It was there. Bearing down on him like death itself.

  But instead of tearing him to pieces with its multitude of guns, it went right over his head, all noise and fire and smoke—and then it disappeared.

  Ganganez, near the edge of the cliff, considered just jumping off right then and there. At last, his insanity had gotten the best of him. Why not just complete the trip and get it over with?

  Then came another huge roar. He looked up just in time to see another gigantic airplane roar over his head—and disappear. Then another. And another.

  Ganganez sank to his knees and held his head and knew at last that yes, he was going, going, gone.

  With the last of his strength he reached into his belt, came out with his pistol, cocked back the double hammers and pointed it at his head.

  He began to squeeze the trigger … but then, he stopped….

  He looked up. Another plane went over his head and disappeared seemingly into nothingness. But Ganganez had seen something. Another plane came in, and instead of watching it, he watched the rugged, barren terrain in front of it.

  Sure enough, he saw something move.

  It was like a rip in the fabric of reality, a slight appearance of a spark. Something was quickly drawn back only long enough for the airplane to go through, and then was instantly drawn closed again.

  Ganganez slowly rose to his feet. Maybe he wasn’t insane after all.

  Another plane came in—they were obviously bombers returning from a raid somewhere over Japanese-occupied South America. Ganganez saw something move again, this time much more distinctly. It was an enormous curtain! One that was so highly reflective, it was nearly a mirror. It was being opened and closed so quickly, it gave the appearance that the planes were disappearing into thin air.

  In fact, they were flying into something.

  Ganganez began scrambling over rock and bush, his knees scraping badly, his face tearing from the thorns. It was about 500 feet to this
thing, but Ganganez made it quickly and soon he was able to see it up close, and when he did, he knew immediately what it was.

  It was called an LSD—Light/Sound Deflection. It was an electrically charged curtain, a device that could block out light, radio waves, TV waves, even human voices and mechanical sounds from the inside, while allowing those inside to look out.

  Ganganez had heard of these things. The norteamericanos had placed them up and down their shorelines during the last years of the war against Germany to alleviate the need to black out their major coastal cities. But until this moment Ganganez never realized just how effective the damn things were.

  The barren topography helped the illusion. The LSD reflected light, like a huge, flexible mirror. Just like a magician’s box, if the mirror’s angle is just right, appears empty, when in actuality, one is simply staring at a mirror’s reflection of an empty space.

  Ganganez found the strength somehow to get to his feet and walk over and actually touch the thing. He got a medium-sized jolt of electricity for his trouble, but still he was fascinated with it.

  He heard another huge roar behind him and he turned around to see another gigantic airplane bearing down on him. It was so big and moving so fast, he didn’t have a chance to move. The flying monster went right over his head, no more than fifteen feet from the top of his singed hair and blew through the sudden opening in the LSD. The afterdraft was so powerful, and the screen opened and closed so quickly, the vacuum served to suck Ganganez right in with it.

  It was like falling into a dream. On the outside, the mountain’s peak looked like it was part of the moon. Empty, cratered, craggy….

  But inside the LSD, the brigade officer found himself in a whole new world.

  There was an air base up here—buildings, runways, airplanes and all. Ganganez saw at least twenty bombers, lined up wing to wing. All of them were huge and frightening looking. There were dozens of smaller airplanes too.

  But what was most astounding was the number of people on top of the mountain. Ganganez could see at least a couple of hundred people, walking around, going about the business of running airplanes off the mountain. It was just amazing!